feeling carried with it gratitude and a simple rightness that none of us could deny.
And then we went home.
The second the door opened, Gus pounced, knocking me back into Tommy. With a slobbery, humid mouth, he licked at my face, barking intermittently at earsplitting levels. Tommy wrangled us all the way into the entryway, hooking Gus by the collar to cease the assault.
“Look, boy, look,” he said, hanging on to Gus with one hand while he unlatched the crate. “Look who I brought with me.”
Claudius strutted out, and Gus froze all but for his cautiously wagging tail. With a mewl, Claudius pranced over and ran the length of his body against Gus’s front leg.
With a bark, he bounced, sprinting off in the direction of his basket of tennis balls.
I watched him, laughing, my face opening with a whoop when Tommy picked me up. I was cradled in his arms, my hand on the scruffy line of his jaw, his face turned down to me, brimming with adoration.
“Where are we going?” I asked on a laugh.
“To bed.”
“But it’s two in the afternoon,” I teased.
“I’ve spent nearly a hundred and fifty hours without you. Almost a week of sleepless nights, awake in the dark, thinking of you. I intend to make up for every one of those hours, starting right now.”
“I missed you, too,” I said just before he kissed me.
Blindly, he carried me into my room, laid me down in the bed that felt more like ours than mine. Pressed me into the bed with his heavy body. Kissed me with the lips I loved so well.
Emotion welled within me, filling my chest with a deep ache, stinging my eyes with its truth. I could have lost him. I thought I had. Surely, this was a dream, and any moment, I would wake up back at my place with nothing but Claudius to comfort me from my loss.
But when I opened my eyes, there he was. The scent of him was real, clinging to me as if it wanted to consume me. The feel of his hand on my jaw, on my neck, was true, solid and possessive, stroking my skin with devotion, as if he couldn’t believe it was real either.
Somehow, it was. Somehow, he’d come back to me. Somehow, I’d been given another chance. And this time, I wouldn’t risk losing it, not for anything.
“I love you,” I whispered, a tear spilling, rolling away.
“I know, Melia,” he breathed, surveying my face. “It’s in everything you do, impossible to miss. And I would forgive you anything because of it.”
“I’ll never give you a reason to forgive again.”
His smile, small and sideways, tugged at his lips. “Everyone needs forgiveness. I’ll beg yours again someday, and you’ll beg mine. Because love isn’t perfect, but forgiveness is absolute. I will always forgive you if you’ll promise to do the same.”
“I will. I do.”
“Then nothing will come between us again.”
His kiss told me of his conviction, and mine spoke of the promises I’d made to him, the promise to trust, to believe. Because losing him had taught me the lesson of a lifetime.
I would always side with him. Because without trust, there could be no love. And my faith in him was as absolute as his forgiveness of me.
The kiss deepened, our breath noisy, my heart aching. Our bodies wound together, my hands skimming over the curves of his body, tasting his hot skin. A shuffling shift, and his shirt was gone. A twist and a breaking kiss, and mine was on the floor next to his. He was fire, simmering and sweltering, the heat of his lips, his skin, his tongue tangling with mine and his hands on my waist, on my breast, on my cheek, in my hair.
My hands were just as starved for him—they traced the smooth ridges of his stomach and down, opening his zipper, slipping inside to feel the silken weight of his length in my palm, stroking him with reverence and need.
The moan on his lips tightened my thighs, contracted my core. His cock pulsed in echo, his hips circling to drive himself into my hands. But when my hips rose to meet him, his hand clamped the curve, pressing me into the bed as he kissed me, thrusting slow, steady strokes.
With a pop of our lips, he broke away, feathering kisses along the delicate skin of my jaw, over the fluttering pulse at my neck. The heat of his tongue drew a lazy circle on my skin.